How do we approach the launch plan that was pre-decided and what changes in approaches would you recommend?

First, let me say that no one in Eng/Product likes product delays. The timing gets screwed up because of poor planning or unpredictable events. So, you have two options:   1. Avoid the coordination tax for smaller launches - so that a delay doesn't affect your launch timeline. 2. Give extra incentive for the Product/Eng team to plan better/meet their committed deadlines.    To avoid the coordination tax on small features/enhancements,  I am a big fan of announcing the product after it's shipped. ...Read More

I know this pain!  Part of working at a product driven company is that this will happen and it's ok. The health of the product should come first and that will disrupt markeitng plans for time to time. Stick it out. Don't stop doing product launches just because the timelines didn't work out a few times.  Other things you can do (which we have done) are seperate the marketing launch timeline form the product launch timeline a bit. Maybe the product goes into open beta a month before the launch st ...Read More

I'd recommend to play the "new person card" and ask a lot of questions: what market problems does this solve? How did they ID these market problems? What customers or products have they talked to? What are competitors or doing? If they can’t answer these questions, there is likely room for you to come in and help and take ownership of the launch plan. Especially if it has been delayed, you can argue that now you have time to do some additional research / market validation to answer the above que ...Read More

I tend to think that product launches are delayed more often than not. Because of that, the expected delays should already be part of your planning. Also, there are a few workarounds you can use to deal with unexpected delays.I will go through both below.1. Planning (or Before the delay happened) Improving planningMost organizations push product managers to promise deadlines that are not realistic.Therefore, there is a lot of value on improving PM’s planning to properly estimate how long a new p ...Read More

Follow this rule: Launch is a business decision, not a technical decision. You can still launch, you just won't hit your launch date (as in when we can start booking revenue). You have to get a good sense of your engineering team's ability to deliver on the dates they've committed to. If they have a track record of delays, bake the delays into your launch planning. Have two dates for planning purposes: An internal one for development (with a specific day), and an external one that's loose (like ...Read More